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"You were willing to take Professor Pludder," replied Smith evasively, but with a plain leaning to the side of mercy. "You know very well that that was different," Cosmo returned irritably. "Pludder was not morally rotten. He was only mistaken. He had the fundamental scientific quality, and I'm sorry he threw himself away in his obstinacy. But this man "
"So it is," said Professor Pludder, "and we made for Colorado, knowing that it was the only land left above the flood." All finally got upon the bluff, rejoiced to feel solid ground once more beneath their feet. But it was a desolate prospect that they saw before them.
He dropped his hands and stared at them as their boat swiftly approached. The ladder had just been got ready, and the moment the boat touched its foot Professor Pludder mounted to the deck of the Ark as rapidly as his great weight would permit. He stretched out his hand as his foot met the deck, and smilingly said: "Versal, you were right about the nebula."
These included President Samson, with his wife and three children, seven other men with their families, making, together, sixteen persons, and Professor Pludder, who had no family.
The sudden cessation of the roar upon the roof brought everybody to their feet, and before Professor Pludder could communicate the good news all were out under the sky, rejoicing and offering thanks for their deliverance. The women were especially affected. They wept in one another's arms, or convulsively clasped their children to their breasts. At length the President found his voice.
As Cosmo had remarked, Pludder had a good brain and great scientific acuteness, and, although he did not believe in the nebular theory of a flood, and was obstinately opposed to everything that was not altogether regular and according to recognized authority in science, yet he could not shut his eyes to the fact that something was going wrong in the machinery of the heavens.
Hundreds of air craft had already departed westward, not only from Washington, but from New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, and other seaboard cities, before Professor Pludder assembled his friends by telephone on the Capitol grounds, where his aero was waiting.
"Pludder," responded Cosmo, immediately recovering his aplomb, and taking the extended hand of the professor, "you certainly know the truth when you see it." Not another word was exchanged between them for the time, and Professor Pludder instantly set to work aiding the passengers to descend the ladder.
The women and children were first put aboard, and then the men scrambled in, and Pludder set the motors going.
Finally he appeared to throw off the incubus, and, with a return of his ordinary decisiveness, exclaimed: "Enough. I have settled the general principle. Now to the choice." Then, closing his eyes, as if to assist his memory, he ran over a list of names well known in the world of science, and Smith set them down in a long row under the name of "Abiel Pludder," with which he had begun.
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